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Video: Dance festival contributes to “artistic intifada” in Ramallah

The Ramallah Contemporary Dance Festival in the occupied West Bank features daily performances, workshops, film screenings and panel discussions.

Organized by Sareyyet Ramallah, also known as the First Ramallah Group, the annual event celebrated its tenth anniversary this year. Since its founding, it has brought hundreds of international dance companies and more than a thousand artists to Ramallah.

Despite onerous Israeli restrictions on freedom of movement, this year more than 100 dance companies applied to participate.

By involving international artists, festival achieves two aims: the exchange of artistic knowledge and to promote Palestine solidarity by inviting them to bear witness to the occupation.

Farah Saleh, an Italian-Palestinian dancer and choreographer, calls the wider cultural movement in which the festival is situated a “third artistic intifada.”